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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25548334">The Nine Lives of Millicent the Cat</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sermocinare/pseuds/Sermocinare'>Sermocinare</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Gen, Happily Ever After, Millie is a survivor just like Hux, because cats are force sensitive you can't change my mind, cats getting hurt, don't worry she survives, force sensitive animals, starts pre-TFA and ends post-TROS, told from Millicent's perspective</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:53:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,253</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25548334</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sermocinare/pseuds/Sermocinare</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All cats have nine lives, and Millicent will need all of them to survive the story from beginning to the end</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Nine Lives of Millicent the Cat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her eyes and ears are still closed, and she navigates the world by smell and touch alone. She knows the smell of her mother, of her milk. She is surrounded by the warm bodies of her siblings, suckling and sleeping next to her, always together. Here, she is safe.</p><p>And then they are gone. They went away, one by one, until it was only her left. Mother never came back. She is alone, cold and hungry, trapped in darkness. When her eyes open at the sides and let a little light inside her world, she wants to go look for mother, but she is already too weak to even crawl. Darkness takes her again.</p><p>Then, she is surrounded by warmth once more. The smell is different, it’s not even her kind, and she is afraid, but there’s nothing she can do.</p><p>“Shhh, little one. You are safe now.”</p><p>
  <b>8</b>
</p><p>The creature feeds her, takes away the itchy things on her skin and the sickness in her stomach. It keeps her warm, and talks to her in a gentle voice that sounds nothing like her mother, but still soothes her and makes her feel safe again.</p><p>She grows stronger every day, and soon, she can push herself up on her legs and take the first unsure steps. This pleases the creature. </p><p>She is smart, and soon learns that the creature’s name is Armitage, and her name is Millicent. He – for she is sure it is male, it is in his scent – plays with her often. She chases his fingers, pouncing on them and trying to hold them with her claws. He makes a sound she soon learns means happiness. She likes hearing it. He holds her and pets her, and she answers with little purrs, her way to express happiness. </p><p>Her surroundings are strange, though. There is no smell of earth or plants, not even in the air. Everything smells empty, except for the soft place he rests in, and the fabric he puts on his body. She likes to hide in those places, surrounded by his safe smell. He seems to not like that, but not enough to make her stop. </p><p>On one of her many hunts for the round, jingly prey, it rolls underneath something. She will not let it get away, but her paw cannot reach it, so she squeezes into the narrow space. Finally, she can grab her prey. </p><p>Her hind legs aren’t strong enough to pull her out, and she can’t get her front legs underneath her. She cries for his help, but he doesn’t come. It is hard to breathe, and she is so scared that she kicks and wriggles wildly, feeling her fur tear from her skin in places. Her cries get thinner and thinner, she can’t breathe, the strength is leaving her…</p><p>“Millicent! I’m coming, little one, shhh, my poor girl...”</p><p>His gentle hands dislodge her, and her lungs fill with air again. She cuddles into his warmth as he tends to her, checking every part of her for wounds.</p><p>“You were lucky, my sweet. You could have died down there before I had come back! I must kitten-proof this place, it seems, so that your adventures don’t lead you into your doom.”</p><p>
  <b>7</b>
</p><p>The walls of her territory are too close together, so she hatches a plan. One of them moves when he comes in, and she knows exactly when that is. She waits at the moving wall, patient and still, but ready to run the moment it slides open. </p><p>She shoots through the crack before the wall has even slid fully aside, running as fast as her legs will take her. She hears Armitage’s voice call after her.</p><p>“Millicent! No! Millicent, come back!”</p><p>Hearing his boots fall rapidly behind her, she runs faster and faster, down the corridors and around corners, not minding the voices calling out in surprise. She turns another corner -</p><p>- she is hit by something hard and unyielding, flies through the air, crashes back first into the wall, her head hitting the metal with a sharp crack that takes away her vision and her conciousness.</p><p>She awakens to a strange voice saying: “There should be no permanent damage.”</p><p>The voice belongs to a shiny metal thing with an array of appendages, some of them looking sharp and cruel, and she hisses a warning at it.</p><p>Armitage picks her up, holding her tightly, pressing her to his chest where she can feel the rapid beat of his heart.</p><p>She feels him nuzzling into the fur of her nape, like her mother did a long time ago.</p><p>His voice sounds choked up, almost at breaking point: “Don’t ever, ever do that again! I thought you were dead, you weren’t moving, and we are going to get in so much trouble. But don’t worry, I won’t let them take you.”</p><p>
  <b>6</b>
</p><p>This new place feels bad. The energy surrounding her has taken on a bitter taste, as if someone is putting poison into the steady stream of life that swirls around her, around Armitage, around everyone. </p><p>He is tense all the time. He works a lot, and doesn’t have much time for her. She tries to make him feel better by being close to him, stretching out in front of him on the table he is always sitting at nowadays. When he reaches for her to push her aside, she playfully bats at his hands, inviting him to play with her like he used to. </p><p>Armitage sighs, and there is annoyance in his voice: “Not now, Millie. Daddy has work to do.”</p><p>In the end, she crawls into his lap and curls up there, purring softly, and that seems to soothe him a little. She knows it’s not him. He is good to her, always has been, but the poison has seeped into his body and thoughts, too. </p><p>She is determined to help him, so she climbs to the top of her tree and sits still as a statue. She lets her vision shift until she can see the energy, the web that surrounds everything. She can see the poison, dark and vicious, creeping along the web. It doesn’t belong, and it is easy to follow. Deeper and deeper she goes, and there it is, a shifting, sickly vortex. This is where the poison comes from, and she can see two thick strands, writhing like tentacles, reaching out from it. One of them leads to Armitage. </p><p>She is a hunter, she can bring death, and her mind has claws and teeth just as sharp as her body's. She sinks them into the thick strand of poison, tears at it with all her might, and she knows that it is dangerous, but she will do anything for Armitage. </p><p>She screams as something hits her, something ancient and terrible, rending her mind into shreds, and she pulls back, back into her body, but it is too late.</p><p>
  <b>5</b>
</p><p>The web catches her, cocoons her spirit until it has healed. She is still needed. He is still needed, and she is his connection to those parts of the web that aren’t poisoned. She will protect him, as he has protected her.</p><p>Armitage and her have moved territories a lot, and she doesn’t really mind any more. He makes sure to always take her favorite blanket along, the one that holds her smell, and he lets her sleep on the bed with him. Nowadays, they move back and forth between two territories. The new one has a thing that lets her look out at the landscape beyond, which is white and shining. Sometimes, she wishes she could go there, but he has told her that it is cold, and she doesn’t like the cold. </p><p>She is used to constant noise, and even though it makes her hearing less sharp, it’s the way the ground seems to always rumble is what bothers Millicent about the territory with the view of the outside. It doesn’t feel good, so she spends a lot of time there on the bed, the couch or on her pillows. </p><p>The day starts well. Armitage is happy and excited, and he talks to her all through the morning, picking her up and kissing her, and she rubs her face against his to show him how much she loves him, and how happy she is for him. He does get nervous before he leaves, but it is not the scared nervous he sometimes gets, no, it is an excited nervous. </p><p>A while after he leaves, the rumbling in the ground starts getting stronger. And stronger. Everything is shaking, her very bones are rattling, and she runs for her cave underneath the big table. She doesn’t notice the heavy mug sliding over the edge, falling down, and it hits her back…</p><p>
  <b>4</b>
</p><p>She limps for a few days, her hip hurting from being struck by the mug, which is why she just isn’t fast enough, bounding through the cold white stuff, running with all the speed she can muster, crying out for Armitage who is in the belly of the thing that brings them to new territories. The ramp lifts, and she takes a desperate leap, but she knows she will fall short, land in the icy cold, be left behind, and the cold will take her just like it did back when mother and her siblings left.</p><p>Her body is lifted by an unseen hand and pulled into the thing, and she lands on the floor, sliding over it until she can get her feet under her body again. Looking up, she sees a man with dark eyes and a gash on his face. He is angry and hurt, the emotions pouring off him in waves, and for a few heartbeats, their eyes lock, and they see each other.</p><p>The man turns away and growls at someone: “What are you waiting for? Get us out of here.”</p><p>She limps over to Armitage, who picks her up and spends the rest of the time stroking her head and back, soothing both her and him. He doesn’t like the wounded man, and the wounded man doesn’t like him. She now knows who was at the end of the other thick strand of poison.</p><p>
  <b>3</b>
</p><p>She doesn’t feel it coming. One moment she is dozing on the couch, the next the air is ripped out of her lungs. She can’t even cry out, her claws singing into the fabric, holding on desperately as she is pulled towards the gap that suddenly opened in the wall, and it is small, smaller than her body, but it is pulling at her…</p><p>A deafening noise, and the gap is closed. There is little air, just enough for her to breathe, and she waits for Armitage to come and get her, for their territory is no longer safe.</p><p>
  <b>2</b>
</p><p>Armitage is limping and holding his chest, his breath coming in hard, sharp gasps. He lets himself fall down into a chair, opens his shirt and rips off the thing he had been putting on for the last few days, his hands shaking at the task every time he did so. There is a big bruise blossoming on his chest. </p><p>He sits there until he can breathe again, then gets up and buttons his shirt. Then, he picks her up and puts her into the box she travels in. They are going to a new place. He has spoken about it for a while now, in hushed, tense words meant for her ears only. He has been doing something dangerous, that much she knows. Something more dangerous than he has ever done before. She can feel him shaking, and that in turn makes her fur stand on end.</p><p>Armitage is running, jostling her in her box, and she doesn’t like it, mewling at him to stop. He doesn’t. </p><p>Then, there is shouting, and shrill sounds. She can hear people crying out in pain. Her box is struck by something hot, so hot it burns away the walls, and she can feel it burning her side. She screams in pain, screams for Armitage. </p><p>Her box is picked up, and is flung away, crashing onto the floor and rolling over, her burned side hitting the floor. The pain is terrible, so terrible, and she keeps on screaming, even when she hears Armitage’s voice telling her that it will be all right, he’ll take care of her once they are both safe. She is not sure she can hold out that long.</p><p>
  <b>1</b>
</p><p>It had taken a while until her wound had healed, but Armitage had been there for her, soothing her while he put the cool, healing balm on her side. </p><p>Her fur had never grown back, and she wasn’t able to jump all too high any more, not with her flesh having grown back gnarled and stiff. </p><p>Millicent doesn’t care about any of this, though. Not while she is lying on her blanket, her eyes half closed, letting the sun warm her fur. They have been here for a long time, longer than anywhere else, and nowadays she needs that warmth in her bones. </p><p>Armitage has found a mate, and their voices drift over to her, gentle as the breeze that drifts in through the open window, carrying scents of earth, grass and flowers. </p><p>Millicent stretches, yawning, then curls up again. She can barely remember her mother now, but she will never forget the moment his hands lifted her from the ground and her life began.</p>
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